There has been a lot of talk about Spider-Man 4 lately, which suggests an announcement could be imminent. By that, I mean Sony and Marvel still have plenty of time to figure things out, assuming the recent Spider-Man 4 release date claims are accurate.
Rumors say Sony and Marvel want to start shooting the next Spider-Man movie next May and then release it in July 2026, a couple of months after Avengers: Doomsday.
Recent leaks also teased the potential plot connections between Spider-Man 4 and Venom 3 as the latter approaches its theatrical premiere. That’s something we already expect to happen at some point in the MCU chronology. After all, Sony and Marvel used Venom 2 and No Way Home to tie these two realities together.
Finally, we have rumors that Tom Holland’s Peter Parker will play a much bigger role in Doomsday and Secret Wars than in the previous Avengers movies. His Spider-Man should also get a new MCU trilogy, starting with Spider-Man 4.
That’s all the context you need to be aware of before looking at today’s big Spider-Man 4 leak: A leaker says they’ve heard the first rumblings about the film’s title.
If you hate MCU spoilers, you’ll want to stay away from this leak for as long as possible. Then again, the title will inevitably become official.
What’s interesting about the titles of the MCU Spider-Man movies is that they didn’t actually spoil any of the plots. Also, all three titles were plays around the word “home.” We went through Homecoming, Far From Home, and No Way Home. The latter concluded the first MCU Spider-Man trilogy.
Given all that, I’d expect Sony and Marvel to get a new theme for the next trilogy. I’d also expect the titles to be as generic as the first ones to keep the plot as secret as possible. Then again, it’s not like Sony and Marvel were able to keep the massive surprises in No Way Home secret.
What I’m getting at is that the title you’re about to see in the following tweet doesn’t respect those unofficial rules.
Marvel leaker Cryptic HD QUALITY said on X that they heard the next Spider-Man movie title is Spider-Man: King in Black. If true, it’s a massive spoiler for the movie.
King in Black is a massive crossover event in the comics featuring plenty of superheroes, not just Spider-Man. The name refers to Knull, the big villain of the series, who is hell-bent on destroying the universe.
It so happens that Knull will appear in Venom 3 in late October. All the recent leaks that teased a link between Venom 3 and Spider-Man 4 suggested that Knull will move to the MCU. He’ll be chasing the part of Venom that stayed in the main reality after No Way Home.
Knull is the creator of the symbiotes and a massive threat to the universe of Venom. However, he could become a multiversal threat if he transitions to the MCU.
Knull can’t be the big villain of the MCU, however. That role has gone to Robert Downey Jr. He will play a version of Doctor Doom coming after this reality’s Avengers.
Still, if Sony and Marvel want Knull to appear in at least one MCU Spider-Man movie, we’d be looking at a big multiverse crossover event rather than the smaller, more grounded story we’d expect for Spider-Man 4. That’s not necessarily the best idea, considering we have already gone through a massive multiverse story with No Way Home.
If Spider-Man 4 is indeed called King in Black, Sony and Marvel won’t wait to give us this particular fight. Spider-Man will likely have to partner with Venom (Tom Hardy) and maybe some of the MCU’s Avengers to keep this threat at bay. And I can’t help but wonder whether Marvel would want to lend Sony that many Avengers for this story.
The timing of Knull’s arrival relative to the events in Doomsday and Secret Wars will also be important. Rumors say Spider-Man 4 will be placed between those Avengers movies. I’d expect that to be the chronology of events. We’ll see Peter Parker in Doomsday, then Spider-Man 4, then Secret Wars.
Say RDJ’s Doom starts destroying the multiverse in Doomsday; it could pave the way for the Venom 3 version of Knull to traverse the multiverse to the Earth-616 reality. That’s assuming the main MCU reality doesn’t have its own Knull, of course.
Personally, I hope Spider-Man 4 will have a more mysterious title than King in Black and a less ambitious story. Maybe King in Black is just a placeholder title meant to leak and test the waters.
I’ll also remind you of older Spider-Man 4 rumors that said Sony and Marvel were at odds about the story. Sony reportedly wanted a big multiverse adventure, while Marvel wanted a down-to-earth adventure. Rumors said Marvel might have prevailed in that dispute. But King in Black sounds like the title a big Sony multiverse movie would get.
Venom: The Last Dance opens in theaters on October 25th. We’ll soon know exactly how big this Knull threat is and whether Sony planted any MCU hooks in the movie. Spider-Man 4 title aside, rumors say that Andy Serkis is playing Knull. If that’s true, it’s a guarantee we’ll see Knull again in Sony and/or Marvel movies.
